Water, Water Everywhere

At this point in our weekend forecast, even the waterfowl have to be saying ENOUGH with all the rain we’ve had for the past several days, and it’s supposed to continue!

If you were lucky enough to be able to leave work early yesterday for the start of the holiday weekend, you probably experienced the flash flooding and poor visibility in various parts of the city. You may have driven by the bayous and seen for yourself how dangerously close they were to overflowing their banks, again. Water was ponding on the pavement such that you couldn’t see the curbs or the lane markers or the potholes.

It’s just getting worse. We keep hearing about the continued changes in the floodplain. We keep hearing about the controversy over flood insurance — people having their policies cancelled because they actually filed a claim, companies dropping you from coverage because 10 years ago you didn’t live in the 100-year floodplain and now you do.

Did you ever stop to think about why the floodplains have changed so much?

It’s about the development, or should I say OVERdevelopment, that has been going on here for decades. We are a city covered in concrete. Concrete is impervious. We have an inadequate stormwater system because we’ve let the developers be in charge and do everything on the cheap and not adequately contribute to the fund for the system. We have bayous. We have concrete-like muck for soil. We have subsidence issues. We completely cover our lots with McMansions so there’s no grass. We build these huge multi-lane impervious freeways all over the place rather than reasonably consider a real transit system. We build monuments to capitalism in the form of huge buildings with ginormous parking garages. We are in strip center heaven (or hell) down here with our superstores and urban sprawl that just expands the concrete/impervious cover out even further into the burbs.

There is NOWHERE for the water to go. What do we expect?

I’m convinced Gordon Gecko has had the cement concession for all of Harris County for the past 30 years. He also controls the insurance companies.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, we’ve been brainwashed over the years to “be extremely short-sighted; it is part of the system.”

Comments

Exactly what I said in my comment the other day on AstrosGirlKel’s posting.
Too many McMansions and too many develeopments built on concrete slabs. All the nice well-built (and well-designed for the Houston area) bungalows torn down for houses built on concrete slabs.
Concrete streets. Concrete parking lots. Concrete concrete concrete….as far as the eye can see. And now the damned developers have their eyes focused on the Katy Prairie. And the politicians have their hands out greedily grasping for the money while agreeing to let the prairies go to developer hell.
“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

Back in the early eighties I lived in Austin. The town massively over-developed and we had flooding one Labor Day weekend killing 13.
Austin has the highest average IQ in Texas. The town changed development policies and made Shoal Creek much safer. Houston could learn a lot from their example but probably won’t.
In a note related to another column, Ronald Reagan refused to declare Austin and surrounding areas Federal disaster areas which kept them from qualifying for much-needed government assistance. Austin’s crime? They (Travis County) were the only major metropolitan area in Texas to go Democratic in 1980. May RR roast slowly in Hell with his fellow conservatives.

This reminds me of an article I saw in Popular Science some 30 years ago entitled “Ground Concrete”, wherein you mix concrete with the natural strata you are in and use that for the base – and it is permeable.
Now, the red light has gone on in the construction industry, and they have responded (too late, of course) with schemes like this one:http://www.perviouspavement.org/
It is just a remake of ground concrete that will no doubt make certain companies very rich with their “new” formulations.
No one is going to tear up the old concrete though, so the destruction will be complete anyway!

I recall seeing lots of permiable paving products at a green event at the GRB. I think it should be required, not an option of the builder/developer.
Houston’s settlers brought in appropriate development standards from other locales — there are sunken living rooms in Clear Lake, forgodsake.
Every building should be on piers or stilts. Let the water flow under and on to the bayous.
Instead, we concrete the earth and think we’ve civilized the place.

my mom’s home is near hall’s bayou and anytime we get more than a few hours of rain, we are virtually CUT OFF from leaving the neighborhood! we border tidwell, airline, I45 and all of these routes become immediately flooded, no way in, no way out. we have complained to city councilman gonzales, currently we have a petition signed by over 300 but no answer. last month a woman drowned in her car on I45 at parker. any suggestions would be appreciated about getting help with the drainage issue. on another sad note, our tomatoes drowned and we had seven green roma’s on the vine. on a happy note, my son is volunteering with “recipe for success” and is thrilled with the project. today began a new session and he’s at a new location at denver harbor, but last friday was the wrap up day at the previous location and he battled the floods on I-10 east for the last day party and to deliver photo’s to the kids. i am so very proud of my sons because they give so much back. they are the only hope i have for the future, that their generation will step up to the plate:)